27 Feb 2016

Hannah Fielding is an
incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in
early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with
her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would
invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree
in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling
in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and
a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many
years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives
the dream: writing full time at her homes in Kent, England, and the
South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking
breath-taking views of the Mediterranean.

To date,
Hannah has published four passionate, evocative novels: Burning
Embers, a ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’, set in
Kenya; the award-winning Echoes of Love, ‘an epic love story
that is beautifully told’, set in Italy; and books 1 and 2 of the
Andalusian Nights trilogy, set in sultry Spain, entitled Indiscretion
and Masquerade. She is currently working on her fifth book,
Legacy, which will publish this spring.

A
glimpse of The Echoes of Love

She hadn’t been
there long, absorbed in her thoughts, her gaze lost in the scenery,
when she was aware of a slight movement in the shadows. Startled,
Venetia spun around, rocketed out of her daydreaming. Her heart gave
a jerking throb, and yet she stood motionless, feeling her limbs
heavy, although pulsing with life. Perhaps it was the effect of her
having waited for what had seemed like ages, even though barely
twenty-four hours had passed since she had arrived at Miraggio, but
she was acutely aware of Paolo’s presence, more strongly than ever
before.

He
stepped out of the shadows and stood very still. They looked at each
other dumbly in the penumbra, almost as if they had been strangers.
For an instant, they were alone in the world, isolated in this little
wood under a starlit sky, their souls exchanging a message that their
lips could not utter. Paolo’s eyes found hers and stared into them,
his gaze raking questioningly over her face. A strange little duel of
tension battled between them. Venetia’s heart seemed to have
snapped its moorings, and felt as if it was careering about inside
her. He was so close that she could hear his breathing and see the
almost imperceptible trembling of his mouth.

And then, just as
she was thinking that she could not stand another second of this
searing tension, Paolo held out his hand to her. He was only a few
feet away; all she had to do was accept it.